…how do you teach your kid to love what you love…como você ensina a sua filha a amar o que você ama…

…After some time doing the same thing you get a lot of experience. In my case, teaching has been my dharma in this life. I started teaching when I was fifteen. Since then I havent stopped . I am a Yoga teacher, English teacher and a Photography teacher. In the last 20 years, a lot things have happened in my classes. Super scary ones, crazy and even hilarious. But nothing has ever challenged me before as a teacher like having to teach my own daughter.

Who has ever gone through this experience, please share your thoughts and feelings. Getting in a class as mom and having to act as a teacher demand from you a super inner work. A big one. When I started teaching Mari we went through a lot of different momentuns. Like these: she was jealous of friends, she said she won’t be doing something, she tried to teach me, she told her colleagues about what we were about to do. And for me super different feelings. Seeing her as a student in the class and being not able to treat her as a daughter, confusing!

Being my daughter’s mom and teacher started to happen more frequently. Being her English teacher was a challenge but in the end it worked it out. But then one day I ‘ve begun teaching her yoga. Yes, things got more complicated. Yoga is a sacred practice for me. A moment for working my connection with the divine. And suddenly I had no idea how I could teach her how to look at Yoga in a meaningful way . How could I show her how important Yoga is for me.

Without knowing how to do both things, I made a lot of mistakes. I demanded too much of her. I argued a lot with Mari while teaching .Soon I started to realise that I was pushing her further away from luving Yoga and closer to start hating it. That’s when I stopped the whole teaching thing and shreded some light on the whole process. And guess what happened? My both sides, mom and teacher started talking to each other and I found a solution. Firstly I stopped focusing on results and put the effort on doing Yoga happily. Basically I quit the blabla and went to the mat and did the practice. Things started to get more natural, happier and more real. Soon I ‘ve became to get some happy company on the mat. Sometimes just two dirty feet breathing with me. Other times, curious eyes staring at my postures. A couple of times a double asana together. Two downward facing dogs sharing the same mat. And soon a new yogini was borning in the house. Do you know how I discovered that? The dolls started doing Yoga . She put all of them to have classes on the mat. And the Yoga class has also happened at Mari’s school.Her teacher told me that one day she taught some asanas to her friends while kids were waiting for moms to pick them up. Super proud mama when I heard that. But nothing can be compared to the feeling of sharing the love for Yoga with her. A love that frees, that understands that teaching without freedom is the opposite way of learning something. A devotional love that you cultivate in your daily practice.